Must Have Been The Moonlight Read Online Free PDF Page A

Egypt almost three years ago. He’d made a toast at Pritchards’s wedding last year.
    Michael drew deeply on his cigarette before tossing it in the sand. Mounting his camel, he went in search of the site foreman. Later, he interviewed the five men who had found the gravesite. The foreman then took him to Donally’s tent, an hour away. No one questioned Michael’s motives for asking to go there. Hospitality was as automatic to a man of his rank as it would have been to the sultan himself.
    A striped awning stretched the length of the entrance where a table and chairs remained on a carpet overlooking a small pond. It was the first touch of greenery Michael had seen in months. Cautiously, he stepped through the entryway. The skirt of the tent was raised to let in the desert breezes. His gaze scanned the strewn cushions, the shelves filled with photos, books, and maps. A red carpet covered the desert floor. It was unbelievable that so bare a place could be made to look like a home.
    “I will have your personal things brought in here, effendi,” a servant said.
    “No.” He turned. “Where are Lady Alexandra and Miss Donally?”
    The servant waved his hand over the sheet of heavy silk that divided the room. “They are asleep. They have not moved in hours.”
    Michael’s gaze went to the screen. He stopped the foreman as he turned to leave. “Is someone attending to my mount?”
    “Yes, effendi.” He bowed slightly before he left.
    The lamplighter, who also served as Donally’s personal steward, sidled apologetically around the close quarters to light the paraffin lamps. Waiting for the servant to leave, Michael leaned over the maps on the desk. Dust had already settled over everything. Behind him, photographs lined the makeshift shelves. One picture caught his attention.
    Drawn by some elemental response he couldn’t name, Michael picked up the image of a man and woman atop a camel, his arm around her waist in a racy pose. Her face was turned adoringly toward his profile. In the background, seen through a gossamer halo of light, the shadows of an approaching eclipse stretched across the pyramids of Giza.
    Compelled by a combination of interest and admiration for the photographer, he held the photograph nearer to the paraffin lamp. The photograph was arresting. Poetic in its contrasts of past and present, darkness and light. Michael switched his attention to the bottom of the frame, whereanother photo was wedged inside. Edging it out, he found that it was Alexandra Donally, wearing a veiled costume of a belly dancer. The daughter of an earl, Donally’s wife was an interesting study in cultural diversity. Amused, Michael shoved the photograph back into the frame. He again considered her husband and the questions his absence raised.
    “The Donally Pasha’s sister, she is a good image taker, yes?”
    Michael returned the frame to the shelf, the visual memory of the girl standing unflinchingly with a gun trained on him predominant in his thoughts. “Miss Donally took all of these?”
    The servant tipped his head toward the photograph that had been taken in Giza. “Lady Alexandra has been traveling Egypt writing a book for the British Museum. You know her, yes?”
    By choice, Michael didn’t walk the same social circles of Egypt’s anointed elite. Having had enough pomposity in his life to last until his eternal leap into purgatory, he’d left Captain Pritchards to stoke the home fires of social fortitude. Now, he regretted the neglect.
    “Why did Donally go to El-Musa?” he asked.
    “Donally Pasha was not himself, effendi. When he returned from the gravesite, he was a man possessed. He packed only a few of his belongings, took his rifle and pistols, and left.”
    “Alone? Over a hundred miles across the desert with no guard?”
    “You travel alone. What does it matter when numbers do not protect a man? He speaks the language and has traveled much.”
    Finding no logical argument, Michael dropped his gaze to